Like magic
by meldahlie
Summary: What did Ottery St Catchpole really think of the Weasleys?  And where were Fred & George that Christmas Eve in HBP? Missing moments with the Weasley twins from HBP & DH.


_Author's note: This fic derives from my poor memory: cleaning on Christmas Eve, I was trying to remember 'A Very Frosty Christmas,' from HBP. The full quote is: ""We're going to the village," said George. "There's a girl in the paper shop who thinks my card tricks are marvellous; just like real magic,"" but I went and muddled both Fred & George, and the location of the girl. When, part way through writing, I discovered my error, I did consider quitting, but eventually decided that whatever George was up to in the paper shop, the Weasley twins must have had admirers everywhere, and that Pippa Westley deserved some laughter in her life. So, if you are a purist, look away now... and if not, here are a few Wizard Wheezes..._

_(Non West country readers might need to know: Devon General was a bus company whose livery was cream and bright RED!)_

_It was Christmas Eve – would he come?_

Pippa Westley carefully traced her lipstick on and peered anxiously into the mirror at the result. She hated wearing lipstick, even in the most discrete shades, but it was part of the job. "There is no need to look like a little well-scrubbed schoolgirl, even if-" Clarissa Pring, her boss and the landlady of the King's Arms in Ottery St Catchpole, always said in her loud, firm, definite way. And Pippa would cringe- and paint her face. She knew those "even if-'s". There were a lot of them. And they always meant: _you are._ Even if- _you are a little well-scrubbed schoolgirl._ Even if- _you are bored stiff by the bawdy small talk along the bar. _ Even if- _you do feel sick with the ciggy smoke._ Even if-_ you are hurt by the way they treat you. _Even if- _you are scared stiff of the customers._

The problem was... Pippa stared at her wide-eyed reflection..._ she Was._ She was shy and scared and well-scrubbed and hurt – all emotions which it seemed Clarissa had never had, and therefore despised in a loud, firm, definite way. "You need to loosen up a little," she'd say loudly, always when it seemed the bar was lined with a collection of Clarissa's leering old men. "You have to favour them, flirt a bit – that's business, girl."

Pippa cringed at the very memory of it. That was the problem: she couldn't flirt with anybody to save her life. Not that she had any great philosophical objection; just that nobody in Ottery St Catchpole wanted to flirt with Pippa Westley. At school, she had been 'clever.' 'Brainy.' Or 'Too Smart' if you asked her classmates. And 'clever', in the part of Ottery St Catchpole that went to the King's Arms, was an insurmountable social handicap. They didn't do 'clever'. Better by far to be like Clarissa, who, as she was always telling Pippa – loudly, firmly, definitely – had left school at fifteen, and worked in the pub ever since. Work was what mattered round here. And then it had got out that she was working at the King's Arms because she wanted – did you ever hear the like? - to go to university. If she had been an oddity before, she was a social outcast now. You didn't go to university. Well, the posh sort with their horses and Land Rovers could, but not a girl off the Pond Lane strip of council houses, whose dad was a forestry worker. Clever? Positively dangerous, and any male within fifteen years of her age would grab their drink as quickly as they could, and bolt from the bar. _It hurt. _ Pippa would stand at the back of the bar and watch them all, flirting and joking with the other girls in the pub, and _mind_. Not that she wanted to behave like _that,_ but it wasn't nice to be treated as if you were infectious. And Clarissa seemed to think it was Pippa's fault, and had, lately, taken up swooping over to serve the lads herself, leaving Pippa the girls. Pippa dreaded the girls more. In the King's Arms they were either the crude, loud, common sort who made her cringe, the same mould that had picked on her in school for reading instead of gossiping in the playground; or the posh, rich, horsey sort who ordered their drinks with utter disdain for the whole place, and couldn't even _see_ a barmaid who wore a frilly blouse.

Pippa hated that blouse. She fastened it up to the neck, no matter _what_ Clarissa said, however loudly or firmly or definitely, but it was still- _frilly_. And inescapable; like the lipstick, another thing that was a cringingly inevitable part of the job.

The Job. Everybody had been pleased when she had first got the job. To her gran, and the rest of the extended family, it had been the first sign that Pippa was doing something sensible and normal and like a girl should. To her dad, it had been her pleasing acceptance of his concession. To Pippa, it had seemed the first bright step to realising what often looked like an impossible dream. Being 'clever' up until her GCSE's had only brought mild social disapproval. Wanting to continue in school for A'levels had caused a family earthquake, and when she had ventured to her dad and gran over dinner the reason for A'levels, gran had actually cried. She would _never_ get a job and meet a nice young man if she did _that._ There had followed the worst hour in Pippa's life -worse even than the day she'd lost the key to the whiskey cupboard just as the Old Codger's Society was coming into the pub – until she had made her final appeal: "Mamma did."

Mrs Westley had 'passed on' when Pippa was four, and Gran Westley had come to keep house for them. She had, so Pippa had gathered once she became 'clever' herself, been a bit 'odd,' and had a better job than her dad until she'd finally joined the ranks of 'normal' and left to get married. Her name, still preserved in the baby form of 'Mamma,' was not spoken in the Westley house unless you were being dreadfully earnest and solemn – and it worked. Dad had taken a long, deep breath: "Well, if you can get a part-time job..." The relenting in his voice had sent Pippa whizzing out to find the soonest part-time job she could, which had been at the King's Arms. The idea had seemed wonderful; and it paid far better than mucking out at the livery yard. But after a year and a half, it was a daily part-time grey cloud, that weighed gloomily, frighteningly, cringingly over this Christmas. Apart from one – well, really two identical – bright spots.

She looked hastily at her watch. With all this snow, she'd have to go, now...

The King's Arms, Ottery St Catchpole. Sounded grand. Could do with a lick of paint. And desperately needed some oil on the back kitchen-door-cum-staff-entrance. Pippa hung up her plain navy cloth coat, shuddered at the sound of raucous laughter drifting from the public rooms, and then pulled herself straight and slipped into the back of the bar.

"Busy tonight," Clarissa cried loudly, as she swept through the swing gate bearing two laden trays of drinks. "Try and _man _the bar, darling..." An old codger who'd been 'chatting' with Clarissa snorted, and Pippa kept her brick-red face down as she drew him another pint, and kept her back turned until he shuffled off. _Some Christmas... and as for busy... _She cleared a few glasses, Clarissa swooped in to serve three lads who looked like they'd rather have a teetotal Christmas than be served by Pippa; and then the door opened.

Two flaming red heads, two merry grins, two bright green leather jackets... the pub suddenly seemed brighter, warmer, far more festive, and Pippa beamed. Here were two customers she _would_ be allowed to serve.

Anybody was welcome in the King's Arms, regardless of their state of peculiarity, pecuniarity or sobriety, with one exception. On the far side of Ottery St Catchpole, somewhere in the edge of the woods, lived a family of hippies. Nobody knew quite where their house was, but gossip was happily prepared to speculate regarding teepees and such. The postman didn't go there, and they didn't seem to have a telephone, for occasionally - very occasionally, although it was a red letter day for gossip when it happened - one of them would be seen apparently having a blazing row at the top of their voice in the village telephone box. For a number of years they had driven an ancient blue Ford Anglia, that left strange smells behind as it passed – gossip was divided as to whether this was 'joss sticks' or 'vegetable biodiesel' – and had always seemed to be completely packed out with more people than should fit in a car.

There was a mother and a father and a horde of children, that nobody knew quite how many there were and who didn't go to the village primary school. Without that, you didn't see them about much, but they were pretty obvious when you did, for all of them, right down to the baby when Pippa had first learned of them as a child, had shockingly bright red hair. The parents, as befitted hippies, dressed funny, usually wearing long, flowing kaftan-like things with woolly jumpers on top. The children did seem to wear ordinary clothes, under the woolly jumpers, but they somehow always just looked a little – odd. Pippa had always watched them closely whenever she'd seen them; their 'odd' made her feel better about being 'clever': she wasn't _that_ odd. And whether odd or not, Pippa thought they looked really quite fun. Clarissa didn't. The first gleam of that brilliant colour anywhere near the King's Arms, and the temperature near the landlady dropped to freezing point. The nice thing was, they didn't seem to notice.

She had first seen them close up, quite a different thing from occasional rare glimpses around the village, one boring Saturday last spring. Nobody wanted to be served by her, certainly not talk to her, and Clarissa had been out the back arguing with the brewery driver, from which heated spat Pippa was hiding by standing in the shadow at the back of the bar. There were two old codgers propped on one end, yelling deafly at each other about the football, and at the other were these two... hippies. Clarissa had served them icily before the driver had arrived, and they were slowly working through their pint. Pippa watched them discretely, for while all hippies, according to gossip, looked the same, these two _were..._ completely, perfectly, identical. One of them was toying with a stick, and the other shook his head slightly. 'Not In Here' must have been the gist of his murmur, but the first one just laughed- and the stick turned into a rubber haddock.

Pippa stared. Magic tricks? But that had been really _good..._ and the boy looked up, and suddenly grinned at her. Not a flirty grin, nor a smart grin – just a simple flashing of shared fun at his trick, and with completely unexpected boldness Pippa grinned back, and found her feet carrying her over to their end of the bar. "Okay- I didn't see how that one worked."

Number two laughed. "You won't."

"Wanna bet?"

"I don't_ know_..." The boy with the haddock drew out his consideration with a laugh, and shoved their empty glasses back across the counter. "Do you pay up?"

Pippa filled them both. "In here, _you_ pay: two pounds sixty, but we'll knock off the sixty if I can't spot the trick."

The twins grinned at each other, from somewhere the first one produced his stick- and it turned into a rubber haddock.

Four tries, and Pippa gave up watching. "Two quid, then," she said, holding out her hand. "You are _good..._"

"We should be," said Number two, producing the money. "We run a joke shop."

"Oh yeah?" Pippa scoffed. They were barely older than she was... "A fancy one in London?"

The first boy laughed, and flashed her another one of those grins like- magic, really. "How did you know?" He winked. "What's your name?"

"Pippa Westley," she found herself saying.

"Snap." He made a mock bow. "We're Weasley. One of us is Fred-"

"-and one of us is George-"

"-and we're not going to say which is which!"

Pippa looked at the two identical grinning faces- and grinned back. "That's easy: you're Gred, he's Forge, entirely suitable names for a pair of hippies..."

"A pair of _what_?"

"Hippies," Pippa repeated teasingly. "Everybody knows your family are hippies... well-" she added as they started to snigger again, "what else could you be?"

Number two screwed up his face in comic deep thought, while the other spluttered with amusement. _"Wizards?"_

"Get out of here_.._." Pippa swatted at them. "First you're joke shop owners, now you're wizards...Clarissa doesn't let Shaggy Dogs in here..."

"But we _are..._ joke shop owners," the owner of the rubber haddock protested. "Look..."

He rummaged in his pocket, and produced a thick piece of paper which he handed to Pippa. She took it hesitantly, lest this be another trick that involved rubber fish, but it was only notepaper, headed with amazing curly writing:

_ Weasley's Wizard Wheezes._

_ No.93 Diagon Alley, London_

_ Proprietors: Messrs Fred & George Weasley _

Pippa turned it over and over. Ridiculous, but it looked awfully real... and they had to have got that rubber haddock from somewhere... She looked up at the twins. "I'll believe you," she said flatly, "if you'll tell me which of you is really which."

It seemed to be a deal, for two friendly hands were promptly proffered over the counter. "I'm Fred," said the one who'd given her the paper, shaking hands earnestly.

"And I'm George," said Number two, "but as we look alike I don't see how that's going to help you."

"Oh, I've got a good memory for a face," said Pippa airily, rummaging under the bar

for something. "It's part of the job..." she scribbled hastily onto two paper bar mats "...you're supposed to recognise the ones who left without paying last time...Now-" she looked up. "Fred." And she slapped a bar mat marked with the name before him. "And- George." Second bar mat. "That should do the trick." She beamed at them.

Fred studied his mat with a wicked grin. "But suppose... we just._..swapped_ _them_-" and somehow the two mats switched without seeming to move "-then what?" He winked.

"Then you can jolly well just swap them right back," said Pippa with a mock huff at this sleight of hand. "Because I'm not going to put your drinks anywhere other than on those named mats, and you wouldn't want to drink out of _his_ dirty glass, would you..."

"We'll have to go..." Fred pointed out to George after the third pint was gone. "Here-" he plopped the rubber haddock onto the bar with the money: "Yours."

Pippa picked it up once they'd gone. It was solid, not a balloon... he must have had it up his sleeve. She turned the fish over doubtfully. It was a nice gesture, but she couldn't really take it home... gran wouldn't let her have rubber haddocks scattered about her room... She looked round, and then hesitantly went over to the big cork board Clarissa kept on the back wall of the bar. This was adorned with a complicated mix of mementoes, mostly autographed bar mats and photographs with the odd rosette and certificate; and lost property, a motley assortment of car keys in the summer and gloves in the winter. Pippa took out a couple of spare pins, and fixed the haddock in the bottom corner.

"Lost property?" Clarissa trilled, sweeping back into the bar in what passed for a good humour._ That must mean she had won the argument with the brewery driver – and of course, nobody was going to have given Pippa so much as used bus-stub memento. _"What is it?" she called when Pippa didn't answer.

_ "_Er..." The truth in all its absurdity seemed the only option. "A rubber haddock."

"You won't remember us," said a sudden voice at the end of the bar two weeks later. "Cause we paid our bill last time."

Pippa jumped. She hadn't heard the pub door open, but two shocks of red hair had appeared at the end of the bar. "Oh, I might..." she protested, pulling a thoughtful face back at the two identical grins. "Giles and Frank, wasn't it?"

The boy on the left looked absurdly stricken. "Don't you _recognise _ me...?"

"Nope," said Pippa firmly. "Couldn't tell you from the chap next to you."

"So," she asked once the first pint had vanished, "how's the joke shop?"

"Fine," said the right-hand Weasley. "Everything flying off the shelves, except the portable swamps."

"The _What?_"

"Portable Swamps. Ah, erm..." The twins looked thoughtfully at each other.

"Erm..."

"They're our latest invention," explained the left-hand Weasley, as Pippa raised her eyebrows ever more sceptically at their uncertainty. "You see, we left school due to having been justly accused of causing a swamp in the corridor..."

Pippa groaned. That sounded pretty like them. "_What _did you _do_? Put all the plugs in the sinks and leave the taps on?"

"Ever-Blocking Plugs!" said Left to Right, with a suddenly inspired expression on his face, "that gurgle ineffectually-"

"-and do fountain effects when you pull on the chain...George, that's a winner!" They seemed to remember where they were, and Right – who must be Fred – turned hastily back to Pippa with a grin. "Thanks, we'll send you one when we get it done-"

"Gotcha," Pippa retorted, slapping down the bar mats she'd labelled last time. "And you're not going anywhere just yet, 'cause you've had two pints each, so far. Five twenty, please."

"Ah..." Fred drained the last drops, rummaged in his jacket pocket, and procured- a big gold coin. "Here you are. One galleon."

"Not silly money, thank you. Five twenty."

"But it's not silly money."

"It looks like it's come from your joke shop..."

"But it _has_ come from my joke shop," Fred protested, with a charming grin.

Pippa bit her lip to stop herself laughing. "Five twenty, pounds sterling, or I will have to wring the drinks back out of you..." she repeated firmly.

"_Ooooh,_" Fred teased. "Tough. But I don't think we'd mind that, would we, George?"

"Oh, you would," said Pippa, as George nodded eagerly, "because Clarissa does the wringing out round here; her hands are bigger."

"_Yikes_." George peered up the bar at the disapproving back of the landlady. "Fred, we'll _have _to have the money, this place is dangerous..."

They turned out their pockets amid much laughter, spilling various strange things that must be part of magic tricks in the process, and eventually turned up five quid. "Well?" Fred asked, with a comically anxious quaver to his voice. "_You_ could squeeze us for twenty pence."

"Forget _that,_" Pippa snorted, as the twins sniggered. "Within twenty pence is as good as the old codgers get; you'll pass."

"What do mu- er, you do?" George enquired with interest, as he sipped at the remaining trickle of his pint. "To get the money out of the real non-payers – not like us, of course – you can't curse them?"

"Can't curse them?" Pippa shook her head. "If you think we don't swear round here, you should have heard Clarissa out the back last time the brewery driver came... or perhaps that would put you off coming back."

"Oh... we'll come back," said Fred with a wink. And they did.

Evenings, weekends, always unexpectedly, two startling red heads would appear at the bar, identical and indistinguishable except that Fred tended to wink more. A wink that Pippa considered was as much like- magic- as they claimed their joke shop was. They would order two pints, and then prop up the bar and talk. Pippa told them about the pub, and Clarissa when the landlady was out of earshot, and her hopes for university; they told her about London and their joke shop. They said a lot of silly stuff as well, but there seemed no malice in their absurd stories. They weren't trying to con her; her sceptical reception seemed as much a part of the fun as making up the tales, which Pippa took with massive doses of salt. That they had been at boarding school tallied with their disappearances during term times; she could believe they had been dreaded by some teachers, and a nightmare in a chemistry lab; but she was not going to fall for the school being called Hogwarts, nor that the class was actually Potions, and was held in a dungeon.

At the start of the summer, they brought a younger brother in, who seemed to be called Ron, but that night they took a table well away from the bar, and pointedly bought drinks from Clarissa. On their way out of the door, Pippa overheard one twin: "You see, there's really _nothing_ here..."

She lay awake half that night, torn between being livid and wanting to cry, but the next evening, she was seeing double at the end of the bar again.

"We couldn't talk last night," one of them started hastily, as Pippa stared at them, unspeaking. "We did have something to show you, but we had Ron with us, you see-"

"And he knows the trick," finished the other one. "So we couldn't."

Pippa studied them. Was there a trace of apology on the two identical faces? They were both in earnest, anyway, so she finally grinned, and took the proffered tube delicately at arm's length. There was a loud bang and a puff of smoke, that eventually cleared to show two identical grins. _"Rubber haddock," _she retorted. "What's that thing meant to be?"

"It's a telescope," -Fred, probably- explained. "It shoots out a little fist, see, but we can't work out how to make it more magi- funny."

"That's quite funny enough for me," said Pippa, rolling it back, and getting out two glasses. "What about a _pillow_ on the end and a puff of _feathers_, or you'll take somebody's eye out."

George pocketed it and grinned. "Wanna try it on Clarissa?"

"I need my job," Pippa protested, "otherwise... but did I tell you your rubber haddock's quite a hit? She doesn't know it's yours, obviously, but she's referring all the tall fishing tales to it as the non-partisan judge..."

Pippa initially worried that Clarissa might say something to Dad or Gran, but somehow, Clarissa seemed to be totally ignoring the situation. She should, Pippa supposed, be worried by that, since only a totally useless barmaid was Clarissa going to allow to stand around talking to 'those hippies', but Pippa didn't care. And anyway, Clarissa only went through all the bother of changing barmaids when they committed the awful crime of getting pregnant – known as 'having more than one person behind the bar' – and she was hardly going to achieve _that_ by laughing with two boys at the bar over a rubber haddock.

Christmas Eve, and here they were again. She made a Clarissa-like swoop to their end of the bar. "And where have you two been all evening, then?" Two pint glasses onto the bar top, and she raised one eyebrow quizzically. "Two pints?"

"For starters," said -Fred, probably- Pippa decided, considering them carefully. It was just about possible to guess which was which fairly accurately, because Fred tended to speak first while George tended to prop up the right-hand side of the bar. "How's our favourite bar-maid?"

"Rushed off my feet," said Pippa sarcastically, plonking the full glasses in front of them and propping her elbows on the counter and chin in her hands with a grin. "Soooo, where then?"

"Oh, here and there," -George, probably- shrugged airily. "We were taking an evening perambulation to view the snow-filled scenery of this charming little village..."

"And its indigenous inhabitants at the paper shop," Fred sniggered. "But we are a little late, because I was made... forced... brutally _compelled_..." -his face grew more tragic with each word- "to aid in the decoration of an unfortunate fir tree that has been deposited for some unknown reason to shed needles and nargles in the corner of our over-crowded living room."

Pippa let out a helpless giggle. "I'm not even _asking_ what a nargle is; but I'd like to know if your mum had to resort to threats at gunpoint to get you to help, even at Christmas. She must _love_ you."

"We do appreciate her more," George protested. "Now we're doing our own housekeeping: cooking and dusting and all that stuff... washing our own socks..."

Pippa sniffed deeply. "You_ are...?_ The laundry fairy vanished from your lives, then?"

"Well, that was the delay," Fred explained after a minute when they had finished sniggering incoherently over something that sounded like 'Enchanted Pickwick'. "We were putting up a memorial to your said fairy on't tree."

"And what have you done?" Pippa groaned. "Given her one of those little washing lines with wooden pegs and paper cut-out socks that come on fancy New Baby cards?"

"You cast slurs on my ingenuity," said Fred innocently. "I lay in wait in our carrot patch, despite the arduous trials of cold feet and irate chickens, and then with great effort and a noble struggle I caught and stunned a gnome..." -Pippa snorted as George exploded into laughter- "...and then I painted it gold, despite the spatters of paint which still blemish my manly visage..." -yes, he _did_ have several gold freckles- "...dressed it with exquisite care in finest satin, and placed it in an appropriately dainty pose atop our most elegant of trees..." He trailed off as Pippa shook with suppressed laughter. "You really don't believe me, do you?"

Pippa refilled the glasses they shoved in synchrony towards her, and pulled a face. "I'd have to be as mad as my family think I am, to believe the things you boys tell me. Nargles, gnomes, yesterday it was dragons... you'll be telling me your family's got ghosts in the attic, next."

The twins exploded again, until Fred swatted down a mutter of 'ghoul' from George, and grew suddenly serious. "Families, now, I must ask: have you got any brothers?"

"That'd be telling," Pippa retorted gaily. "Why?"

"_Oooooh_," Fred pulled a long face, and rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't want to get into any _trouble _standing here chatting to you..."

Pippa giggled despite herself. "For that, you need to be watching out for my _dad,_ not any brothers. He's a forestry worker; he could easily get hold of a chainsaw out of hours..."

The twins roared, and George shook his head. "Crikey, Fred, nowhere's safe...Dark Arts in the King's Arms..."

For some reason, that seemed to be hilariously funny, and Pippa shook her head back at them. "So if it's family confidences, how many brothers have _You_ got, then?"

"Four, but Percy's a git." Fred sounded quite put out, and Pippa was surprised. "So," she countered, trying to get them laughing again, "'ow did he git like tha', eh?"

All those brothers seemed to get into trouble that year. In January, the twins were full of how Percy had dared turn up at Christmas, even more git-ish than usual. March, and the youngest brother was apparently poisoned. June, and the oldest brother had had a bad accident. Pippa figured out the twin's visits to about a two week cycle - just long enough, she teased, for them to need clean socks - after a three week absence in July, she began to wonder how many accidents hippies could have.

And then one day they were there, but- something wasn't right. Those green leather jackets, two mops of flaming red hair, two identical sets of freckles, but- they weren't alike, somehow... for one of them had two ears, and the other- had only one and a _hole_... Pippa stared anxiously, and then caught herself with an inward groan. With those two and their joke shop, this would be one of those silly wigs or masks that had wounds or embedded axes or in this case, no ear...

She came to the bar with a pout. "I don't know if I should be talking to you two any more."

"What's that you say?" returned the ear-less one, cupping his hand round the hole. "I'm rather 'ard of 'earing, now."

It looked awfully real close up... but Pippa kept smiling. "Well, you seem to have finally been in trouble with someone else's dad and a chain saw..."

"Whoo-hoo_-hooooo.._.!" Fred-_ it had to be Fred, only he could make that sort of joyful noise –_ whooped loudly, and Pippa felt an inner, hidden relief that _he_ still had both his ears on. "_George..." _he continued with mock horror, "she _suspects...!"_

The solemn expression on George's face fell away with a roar of laughter, and Pippa grinned at both of them. "So go on," she said firmly, "what's happened 'ere?"

"I 'ear, with my little ear, it's not a fit tale for a lady's ears," Fred retorted, "but he's a good boy now."

Pippa cocked one eyebrow. _Yeah, right?_

_ "_Yep, the first thing he says when I see him is, he's feeling saint-like, 'cause you see, he's..."

"..._Holey!_" they chorused together.

Pippa swatted at them both, and banged two pint glasses onto the counter. "Okay, okay, so you had a really close shave you're not going to tell me about... but if he's Saint George-" she pointed at the now distinguishable and sniggering subject, "then _you-" _she pointed accusingly at Fred "-must be the dragon!"

"Hungarian horntail?" George gasped out after a minute's helpless laughter. "Welsh green? Swedish short-snout? _Romanian Research...?_"

Pippa snorted. If it was making up silly dragon breeds, even she could do better than _that... "_It's obvious...that colour red -_ Devon General._"

She took a good peer at the hole while the twins were guffawing, to reassure herself it was real, and properly sewn up and not infected, but it looked pretty well healed. "Still," she added bracingly as George straightened up and caught her staring at his head, "at least they did something about a much-needed brain transplant while they had you under anaesthetic. I can't see right through to daylight on the other side, any more..."

"If it's brain transplants, Mum needs one," said Fred, checking his glass was completely empty before pushing it back. "Bill's getting married next week."

He said this in such a tragic tone Pippa exploded with surprised laughter. "Well," she gasped, "I'm glad it's not _Bill_ you think needs the brain transplant. Does his expected know what she's getting for brothers in law?"

"Two_ charming_ young men," George protested innocently, "who are looking forward to meeting_ all_ her family, especially the vee- er, _cousins..."_

"I don't want to know," said Pippa, raising her eyes to the ceiling. "Just don't lose any more ears, or I won't have you back 'ere..."

A wedding... Pippa thought a wedding with the Weasleys sounded fun, and took a detour via the village church on her way home, to see if it looked like the sort of wedding you could go and watch at. She'd like to see what those two looked like when they were wearing something smart.

But there was no sign of any wedding; no flowers, no notice... then, as hippies, Pippa conceded with disappointment, they were as likely to get married under a totem pole or round a sacred fire or something, as in the moth-eaten architecture of St Catchpole's late-Victorian-neo-Norman-Gothic splendour. She'd have to ask the twins. But when they showed up three days later, they came with company: a stocky, shaggy haired man called Charlie, and the aforementioned Bill, whose face seemed to be lined with scars, but beamed happily exactly as if he was getting married in two days time. They took a table well away from the bar, and didn't chat, but Pippa understood. Magic tricks and laughter while propping up the end of the bar were for just the three of them – next time.

It was late August before she saw them again, appearing as if from nowhere to prop up their usual spot on the far end of the bar. Pippa frowned as she hurried down to them: they looked different – well, obviously, non-identical – but somehow...older? Worried?

"What's up? You're peering round the bar as if you're watching for a debt collector."

"Nah," said George, "we're all right; no debt hunting goblins in here."

"Oh, is that what they are?" Pippa laughed. "I know from Clarissa's favourites that bailiffs are an alien species who maliciously deprive them of their inalienable right to drive a car they haven't paid for and watch telly on the long-suffering generosity of the licensing board, but I didn't know they were _goblins..._" She got the usual two pint glasses out. "So if you're not in debt -_yet_, two sixty, please- what's making you two so cheerful?"

"Ah," said Fred, with a melodramatic sigh, "we were wondering if we are about to suffer another..._ loss."_

George nodded solemnly. "Yes, we hear from very reliable sources-

"-in the paper shop-"

"-that the dreaded beast called Exam Results is released-"

"-snatching gorgeous females-"

"-off to the dread realms of Higher Education-"

"-and it might take our favourite bar maid!"

"When you do that," said Pippa, giggling, "I seriously doubt that there are two of you, and that you're not just a ventriloquist and his dummy."

_"And vich von of uz vud be ze dumi?" _said George suddenly in a little squeaky voice.

"Honestly..." Pippa protested when they had all stopped laughing completely helplessly. "It is very kind of you to ask, and yes, I have caused another family earthquake by passing my A'levels, but you don't need to worry, because the proper thing before vanishing to your dread realms is to take a 'gap year.'"

"_Gap?"_ squeaked the ventriloquist's dummy suggestively.

"Most people travel," Pippa continued with a frown, "but_ I _am earning my university fees by working here full time for a year. So you'd better make the most of it – cause then I'm going

to Exeter."

"My deepest and most heartfelt congratulations on your very sensible decision-"

_ "_And commiserations on your unfortunate success in the realms of academia..."

Pippa found both her hands shaken with absurdly hearty enthusiasm. "Are you two _ever_ serious?"

"Serious?"

"Serious?"

Fred looked at George.

George looked at Fred.

"Successful-"

"Amusing-"

"Attractive-"

"Entertaining-"

"Identical-"

"Charming-"

"Eligible"-with one of Fred's winks like magic

"But never sensible: that's Percy's role," yawned George. "We went in for business instead..."

"Ah, Percy..." Pippa closed the bar tap on another two pints with a happy clunk and a wink. "'Ow's 'e gitting on then?"

All through that 'gap year' Pippa kept going - for the money, and for those two red heads coming in. It was never regular now, but they would be there, appearing as if from nowhere at the end of the bar with a trick and a joke, and Fred's wink like- magic. At Easter, they stopped.

One week, two weeks, a month, two months... Pippa made herself stop looking at that end of the bar when she heard an unexpected noise. According to village gossip, the hippies must have moved...

First of June, and Pippa stood behind the bar, in sole charge as Clarissa had gone to a funeral. She gritted her teeth as a village boy seized his drink at arm's length and dived off. Three more months, and this three year torment would be over. She jolly well wasn't working September, and then- well, Exeter had to be better than this. She could have got a better, full time job for the summer, but Pippa had been afraid that if she got into anything more professional, her family wouldn't let her get out of it to go to university. And, being honest, part of her still desperately hoped that those two flaming-red heads might come back in ... to see George's impossible card tricks and Fred's flashing grin like- magic; one last time...

The pub door opened, and- it was, it _really_ was, really like magic- a bright flaming-red Weasley head...and another and another and another. Pippa felt her face break into a beaming smile, and suppressed the urge to bounce up and down as she had when she was very little. It _really was..._ One, two, three, four, five, they came to the bar and she swooped joyfully over to serve them.

"Take a table, or you'll set the bar on fire," she remarked, jotting down the order. Only five of them, no Fred yet, but he was probably outside still parking the car they must have driven, since they couldn't walk over from their parent's old house any more. She wondered what they drove, with a joke shop in London it was probably something fancy... a Merc or a sports car. Somehow, they all looked rather sober, older again... -but that was only because it was such a while since she'd seen them. Anyway, Pippa grinned as she picked up the tray and swung happily through the swing gate, she knew a way to get them laughing again...

They all looked up as she came to the table, and Pippa nodded happily. Yes, she could get this one right. She put the first drink down with a clunk: "Bill." Next chair: "Charlie." Horn-rimmed spectacles: "Percy." The youngest one: "Ron." And right 'ere: " Saint George." She beamed triumphantly at their expressions of startled pleasure, and winked at George. Occasionally even the worst bar-maid could remember names and faces. "Now, there's a round or so on the house when you tell me what you've done with Fred."

Five frozen faces.

Pippa stared in horror, feeling dimly her eyes and mouth opening to what Clarissa called her 'goldfish impersonation.' _ What was wrong... with them...? ...with Fred...?_

"He's dead."

Percy's face, as torn with emotion as his voice, was the last thing Pippa saw before the entire world suddenly swam saltly before her eyes. She clung to the back of the chair before her, the sixth chair, that should have had the sixth Weasley in it, the Devon General dragon, laughing at her joke in managing to successfully name off all of them in one go, and probably banging his glass on the table as he did- had- at their end of the bar... that laughter, that wink like- magic... that was _gone...?_

She blinked the tears away frantically, and five anxious, stricken faces stared back at her. _What had she said that for...? _ Bill looked as if he was about to say something, and Pippa felt her lower lip tremble suspiciously. She couldn't talk, she couldn't take an explanation... she bit her lip with painful firmness, and dashed desperately from the table.

Behind the bar, the world was another mist of tears, until Pippa found herself blindly clunking glasses onto a tray. At this rate she'd smash something, and she didn't need that delay. She wiped her eyes hastily _– landladies shouldn't make you wear mascara if they don't want to find it on the roller towel -_ and bent down to unlock the whiskey cupboard. Not the blend, not the malt, behind the Glenfiddich for the old codgers' birthdays... that was the one. Not the 'firewhiskey' the twins had always teased for, but it would have to do. Pippa checked the label carefully and then set the bottle on the tray. A hardly opened vintage Jack Daniels on the house – Clarissa would kil- well, could do anything to her. Pippa found she didn't care. Anything less didn't matter, and Fred would get a right laugh out of it if she was bumped off for having dished out whiskey in his honour. All that mattered was making it up to those five brothers over there...

They were still sitting in silence as Pippa carried the tray back, still looking frozen and shocked and horribly awkward at her stupid, stupid, tears. They all looked up again, and Pippa put the whole tray of makeshift sympathy down on the table before any of them could speak.

"Fred." And she nodded gently, and left them to it.

"Excuse me...er- Pippa?"

_They sounded so alike..._

Pippa hadn't dared look at that corner of the room again. She had stayed behind the bar with a brittle composure based on the fact that you cannot run and hide when you are in sole charge of somebody's else's pub; and longed desperately for Clarissa to come back. But now- _please, no..._

She gripped the edge of the bar until her fingers were white, and looked up. A flaming-red mop with one ear, and horn-rim spectacled Percy, were standing at, not propping up, that familiar end of the bar. He didn't look very git-like now, and Pippa found herself hoping they had somehow made that up, before Fred died.

Percy swallowed. "Thank you." His voice was a shade pompous, but the gratitude was genuine and Pippa suddenly wanted to pour out that they didn't need to thank her, it was all her stupid fault for upsetting them... "We- we know Fred liked coming here," Percy went on slowly. "He meant a lot to us, and we can see- he meant a lot to you. And we think- he'd want you to have this."

He put something flat and square down on the bar. Pippa looked down, into Fred's grin, that suddenly and stupidly swam with tears again, for it seemed to be moving, but it was... Pippa picked up the picture and blinked frantically, for the figure in it nodded and grinned, and even winked... _of course. _Her shaking fingers finally registered the thick frame – _it was one of those new digital photo frames, that actually played a little video repeatedly; with a fancy London joke shop, they'd have had the money for such fancy new gadgets, and the silly waving and grinning film on it was just like Fred..._

She looked up, becuase- but they had gone. The table was empty, and rushing to the door Pippa could see no sign of those red heads in the car park. She looked back down at the photo frame. It was too kind of them, but she couldn't return it now. Nor leave it here, like the rubber haddock. Clarissa wouldn't want a picture of one of 'those hippies.' It was hers, then; and Pippa smiled slightly at the Fred now shuffling a pack of cards. It was a very long film... it was really, like Fred himself, a bit like- _magic._

The End. 


End file.
